i got an assignment in ap calc today to write my life story. this being from the perspective of eighty-three year old me in 2070. so i thought i would write it here. this is how i do, after all.

i was born at two o'clock pm february twelfth nineteen eighty-seven on a bed in a room in rex hospital in downtown raleigh, north carolina. this should be an important detail not for particular stylistic reasons but because it is my entire life's story after all. well... then i suppose i should start with my conception but i dont actually recall that. i remember baby pictures of myself - doing things - but the original memory... damn. not photographic, just emotional. just a sense of being and knowing and feeling and if i think hard enough about it i can convince myself its just me creating a memory for myself now but i think... i think. back in 1990 we built a house south of garner, north carolina. i loved to walk around upstairs and go near the edge and throw nails off our upstairs. this always upset my poor mother (god rest her soul) but i enjoyed it. no... back before that we lived with my grandmother for six months. i was sick and nauseous and had to take a pill so i took it with a pepsi and... a pickle? or a banana? ah - i forget. the important part is... i remember. i remember things from pre-school in fuquay-varina united methodist church and counting to a hundred to prove i could and a little red backpack that i used for four - no six - no four - years. and i remember things from every single grade through elementary and middle school. in my head ive set aside memories filed away so that when i think of that specific time i can recall those same ones over and over again. but i wont go into all that. memories are important, they shape who you are. but they dont shape who you become, or became in my case.
i remember always being just outside the loop when it came to new slang or styles or whatever. i guess i never was quite... i dont know the word. i got straight a's through elementary school. i almost cried when i got my first b in middle school. that was the start of something. it made me... vincible (logical opposite of invincible). this meant to me that it was ok to fail. or, not to fail but to be imperfect because i was still better off. everyone plays the flute, sometimes (thats fool, as i know now). no, middle school was great and i remember my english teacher eighth grade writing a novel about his secret past and i wanted to do that. i learned to play music in middle school, the clarinet and then sax. i worked on the yearbook staff... did a lot of things. played soccer the last two years and did damn well if i recall correctly. and i do.

the real turning point in my life was high school. raleigh charter high school. i never knew how special that place was until i left. i remember applying there and writing some bullshit candy-coated essay that was true but that i didnt really mean. i was impressed by their presentation for open house (and the proximity to krispy kreme doughnuts) but i also liked southeast raleigh's but for different reasons. southeast had a football team. it was the real school of the two. charter was cool but didnt offer much in the way of the total experience i didnt want to miss. so i made southeast my first choice... and didnt get in. i lived outside of district. so i set myself up to go to charter. now, southeast did call back a week or two before i started school back in 2000 but i got angry because they had ditched me so i bitched at them - politely - and let them go. so i attended raleigh charter high school.

this place was different than any other school i had seen. small... with intelligent teachers and students to match. the kids were strange and i believe that shaped me because i started believing myself to be the same way. ive appreciated that ever since. i still miss freshman year. all the kids i remember now... i dont know where they were. i can sit and think of a specific memory - elections, english class, movies etc. - and wonder... where were you then? why werent you with me? but it was alright. i made great friends, fell in love with them, and learned how to deal. i got read to in english class and learned how to appreciate literature. but no, i still appreciate literature but those people are the ones i miss most. kids that could keep me up till four am any night - and did. i miss those people. jesus, whatever happened to them?

sophmore year i learned to write. this has been a big part of my life... ever since. mrs newmark (?), my government teacher, had this weblog... this blog. it was an idea that i took up with no understanding and made it my own. i sortof believe i was the first of the entire blogging community (a formidable one at charter) to actually start writing. and writing everyday things turned into essays and thought provokation and things ordinary high school kids werent doing. i learned that when you express yourself, be that through writing or music or any number of things... you will learn more about yourself and how you think and act and react and deal with any number of things. it is heartening in a way. soph year was the year of love and music. i got a guitar for my birthday and started teaching myself the ropes. it was slow at first but i really felt it and kept going. so by senior year i knew a lot more than even my contemporaries that took lessons. i even started writing music. this was a big step because music is fluid, like poetry... and it takes instrumental and lyrical mastery. not easy. but that wasnt all, no, not all. there was a peace protest that year where a lot of our kids marched out to the town mall to question authority and speak out against the war in iraq. and we all know what that was about.

as an aside, it was around this time that i pretty much conquered boy scouts and became an eagle scout. this is something i am still proud of today... i still get asked about it. i cant say how much that has influenced my life for the better. but its a helluva lot. DAMMIT BOY.

this was all fine and wonderful and lovely but i could write for days and months and years in fact about those high school years. in fact, i managed a hundred thousand words in that blog through the beginning of senior year. that came into play later. but more on that as it happened. chronologically of course. obviously the next part of my life was college. this was no surprise to me but it was wonderful to be accepted early to wake forest university. it was my father's school and his father's school and my uncle's school on my mother'sside of the family and... ah - what a wonderful place. we had always been huge sports fans and even as the atlantic coast conference expanded we were rabid, rabid, demon deacon fans. unbiasedly i visited schools and finally chose wake as the place for me. it just felt right, you know? so i went to school there. freshman move in day was a bitch because my mother got all... well you know. teary-eyed and such. and she wouldnt leave... but i cant blame her. i always loved her most of all. so when i found some alone time in my little dorm i sat down with my guitar and played every single one of the forty dave matthews band songs i knew. this isnt an exagerration. those were incredible melodies... he was an incredible man. i remember being turned on to music and him back freshman year. but that is enough about freshman year. i already cannot bear it.

well at wake, as is tradition, a lot of alcohol went around. yeah, i got drunk a lot but i knew my limitations and studied hard as well. made friends with chris paul and willie the jet jet jet idolette. good men, the both of them. i majored in biology at wake and minored in intramural sports. i was on a soccer team... i forget the name. but it was exceptional and somehow made it past the IM office without being censored. good times. and that semester junior year i studied abroad in vienna was... oh jesus. there are some things that dont need mentioning. all my jewish friends an account for that. i loved wakes program in vienna so i went to london senior year. astounding also... and more booze. but hell, i passed biology with some... colors. i dont think they actually flew - i spent more time at lawrence joel memorial coloseum at basketball games than i probably should have - but i passed. and made it well enough to get into bowman gray medical school. see, back in high school i never knew what i wanted to do or be when i 'grew up'. i knew though back in my head that i was grown up already and it was just a case of what to do to get by. so i figured upon the fine profession of anesthesiology by chance on a trip to the beach with my father - no mother - and thought about it and found that i didnt mind the sound of it. i could always write and do other things that would complete my life while i wasnt working. the bowman gray years werent the most memorable of my life, aside from a couple precious visits to nyc with old friends whom i missed dearly. more about that later of course.

after graduating from bowman gray and getting hired by a plastic surgery clinic in raleigh, the doctors names i always have trouble remembering, i was diagnosed with diabetes. this was no big surprise either but saddening to say the least. i imagined my old uncle - who i always admired for all the wrong reasons - always needling himself and checking his sugar back in the day. well tough. it was something new to deal with. and ive always kept it around in the background. amazing for a diabetic to live to eighty-three? damn fucking straight. ive never been ordinary though. i am the most unusual kid. humble too.

this, however didnt play much into the best time of my life. that time when i had gotten into the groove of work and was doing fine to the tune of a couple hundred thousand a year. but money isnt important, materials arent important. its what you do with your life that really matters. i tried not to waste time. i spend $12000 on a 1967 austin mini (there werent many left, trust me) and a couple thousand more to fix it up with a rollcage etc. for racing. this was all around 2016 or so. ever since i was a kid i had always wanted to go vintage racing. so i took a weekend's class to become a driver and took that little mini out on the track. it was wonderful, that sensation of lawlessness, that freedom that comes with pushing that tiny machine to its limits around every corner. and of course it was a crowd favorite. intimidating though to race out there with those big cubic inch mustangs, camaros, and vettes. i always used to feel different because i never was a fan of the corvette. i guess that came from my father. he was a british car man. owned a 1969 jaguar e-type convertible that i still have today. such a sensuous car. it was... and still is the most beautiful automobile ever. and let me tell you, it would run too. sonorous with that big 4.2 inline six under the long hood. sex on wheels.

but no, this isnt about cars or sex... yet. it was about this kid i met at my ten year high school reunion. sweet kid of then twenty seven. the same one i had always known about. the one that wasnt supposed to work. shes beautiful you know. still is. we dated through the years and through the vintage wrecks (though few) and the rock climbing (another vehicle... hah... 1979 jeep cj-7 with the amc 304 - AH the rocks we climbed etc.). we got married. that was the most wonderful day of my life. wonderful because i didnt believe it to be real. ever since back in the day i had known this would happen but never really believed it. i had to stop and smell the roses that day, not let life pass me by. it was hard. hard to deal with, all that. standing in the chapel and watching her walk down the isle with her father. how do you deal with that? it was tough, difficult, but mmmm. i can still feel that. still feel her lips and my inner collapse. she can make me die, still does.

i continued to write the entire time though, remembering kerouac and hunter thompson from back when in high school and when i finally became accredited by some small sources i decided to publish the blog. you remember, that one from high school. i had checked it over and over in school and figured it to be about 150 pages worth of material senior year... then up to 400 by the end of college. i found a publisher and after a while it published as a sort of... ahem. i dont even know. a real-life beat journal of sorts. i had slowly become more conscious of myself so the stuff from college was real drunk and aware and kerouacean than anything before it. and i loved that. loved it to my core. i never wanted to be the next jack or shakespeare or joyce but i still wrote all the time. i wrote poetry, music, essays and sometimes just words for fun. it is a release you see, to get all that out, to type or scribble until you cant anymore and when you look back you may not completely appreciate what youve accomplished but at least you feel better than before. what was inside is now outside, continue the turnover of ideas and you will get more and more fantastical and wondrous and stupifying shit that really will make her dress wrinkle. yes, you understand. dont you?

this was about the time that i got to live my dream life. i bought a twenty-foot carolina skiff and bolted on a johnson 240. holy christ that bugger would run. lake or salt it was the thing... even for family. i had a family. without being hostile or selfish though, this isnt about them. they were never who i had imagined anyway. i built a house for me and my lover out in the country of the last underdeveloped county in north carolina - chatham. it was a beautiful place on a huge plot of land with trees and fields and streams (sounds a bit like a magazine eh?)... i saved a cow. i felt it was the right thing to do. always had an infatuation with the animals. beautiful eyes... that cow. belle. i bought her off a farmer who was going to send her to the meat factory. this may sound a bit fantastical but i swear to you, that is what happened. now that i had saved a cow i wanted to give her the world. or at least all she could appreciate... being a cow. now what is the one plausible thing that cows never get to experience that most of us here in the good old NC can almost take for granted? yes... no. yes... the beach. i loaded belle and the strange kids into my trailor and truck (respectively) and headed off to the beach. i would take belle and the wife on walks while the sun set. people may have looked at us oddly but that was fine. belle loved it. loved it i say. well how many of you ever took a cow to the beach? thats right.

and - ah - there were sad times too. i choose not to mention them much though because in my old diabetic age only the happy things need mentioning. so as my parents and family died off, either in accidents or through disease ( i was the last one to contract diabetes however) i relied more and more on my wife. shes always been there though, and will always be. she was there through the comical war. you rememeber... when switzerland got pissed in the 40's and attacked germany. jesus, what were they thinking? the swiss army was outfitted to the teeth... with forty useless functions. that one was a bit fun but people did die. that is never fun. you can watch violence on television all you feel like. shit, or realize it like you can do these days (never understood all this new fantasy-reality technology shit). nah i remember how that felt. i went rafting once back in high school. we lost a man from the boat at the beginning of a quarter mile rapids. we couldnt get him back in and i can still hear the guide yelling for us to get the man we must get the man and how our man up front couldnt pull him all the way in and had to let him go before we hit another rock and went over another rapids and how terrible that must have been to let him go and have him get sucked under the raft and not come up. and not come up. and not come up for seconds which were innately hour-ish in a time so stressful as that. and i thought he was dead. and that would have been the first time i had seen a man die. terrible feeling... though i had watched two of my dogs die in the two years before that. i got over it though. tears dont flow forever.

this all kindof blends into my life today. maybe a mid to late life crisis deal but i just cant find much to say about my life to now. i was in a coma from '54 to '56. my wife stayed faithful. god i dont know what i would do without her. i wouldnt be here. that coma was from a car accident by the way. you cant be too careful in cars. thats a life lesson for you. ah - how did i ever manage to end up in that lake anyway? i suppose since then ive never really been able to put up with frustrating things. now for the life of me i cannot remember the past ten years. i need to take more pills dammit. god why did i start this? i havent even scratched the surface. this isnt what i am about... it was never about what i was about. ever since high school ive been more focused on the emotion and the deepness and the black and whiteness and utter grayness in people and everything they do and feel and think and behind whats there and why and who and life! and why is this nothing like that! ah! i want to be on the road again. my love and i have a death compact. dont tell.

this is not a happy post. i wish i could come here with more emotional stability but hell, at least im here. i know i havent written in five days but... well i was gone and i have so much to say about that but now, after time, i really dont want to write it all down. and i have so much on my mind... with people and things to do and even trivial things. somehow it all matters so damn much. i dont want to worry about an 'encore' when there shouldnt have been an intermission. things just didnt work out that way. i dont want to worry about making friends again because you shouldnt have drifted away from me to begin with. and now its so hard to talk to you... it never was before. the only kid ive ever really been able to open up to wont even look me in the eyes. and its partially my fault. i dont want to think of it that way though... and i dont want to feel alone because ive got no damn right to be.

i could write a couple thousand words on this past weekend but i wont. i just dont have the drive, the excitement needed to fuel a post like that. i wont describe in detail how riding to the mountains in the backseat of a saturn with two other guys was comfortable after a while... how i prefered that by the end of the weekend. after a while some people click. even if its four teenage guys and one's mother. i could complain about staying an hour and a half away from the rafting place - even though the koa kicked ass - ping pong tournaments - merry go rounds - or relay how wonderful and painful that one 89c. french vanilla coffee was that misty saturday morning. how it scalded my tongue and heated me inside my hoodie and even without that crazy debut music made that backseat more memorable than before. i had a reisen.

how rafting was one of the scariest and most memorable experiences in my short life. how our guide was a fellow eagle scout. how our first class four was a quarter mile long and the huskiest man in the boat - 350 - got knocked out by a rock that moved during a flood a week earlier. how he could have died. how other people would have. the guide screaming get to the man we must get him in the boat and him floating ahead and going over rapids and screaming for help and the inflection of his voice - ah. how our guy had him up front but couldnt pull him over because his legs were being sucked under and we were about to crash into a rock and go over a falls and he had to let him go. let him go. how can you do that to a man? how can you let him go and slide under the boat and go over the rapids and stand up and look and he isnt anywhere. seconds counting, realizations forming - i have just seen a man die - until he pops up and the guide, just a junior, pulls him in with his paddle and i drop mine and scramble to the back and grab him by the jacket and helmet and again by the jacket and helmet and finally by the bottom of the jacket and pull with gods help and he slides to the bottom of the raft sucking water and not speaking but after a second says he is alright. and his reconstructed knee is fine. and they hand us the paddle - broken - and i reach over to the right with both arms and back over my head to the left and my left shoulder dislocates...

but its fine because it imperceptibly relocated as quick as it happened. and we surfed and i got knocked out and almost and temporarily got sucked under water and couldnt come up because i was under the boat and couldnt breathe but it was all mercy and adrenaline and i wasnt afraid because i had my eyes closed. and i come shooting out and float away and give a thumbs up and go to the side and run back in to pull our quarter mile swimmer out of the river because he was too tired to make it to shore.

it was all ok though, i had a reisen.

and... the entire time i wanted a guitar because i didnt have one. and now that ive had one and exploited it for a while its back in its case. on its stand. and these ends are still untied i never burned bridges and im glad of that. i would never make it then. but now life is so cryptic and i dont understand. i dont know where you are coming from, where you are, why you arent here. or why you care... or why other people dont anymore. how can you hang on other peoples shoulders for so long when its me that cares. so much for being me.

i wrote a song today. i was happy about that for a while but now i dont even understand it anymore. it is cryptic too. im not entirely sure it has a point. the point is, i havent written a decent song in a long time. in forever. if i can put this to music it would be a strange but fitting beginning for me. a beginning for nowhere. this is the original unedited version. the parenthetical lines are ones i edited in over the preceding ones. its called

"four seasons"

lost air in a sea of cares
i am the ice in your iced tea (it seems to me youd share this stare)
if a bone to a dog is a home to a frog (crash on your floor and wonder where)
ill be...
your lampshade

squirrels wont go but as they please
crawl with me in the middle of the street
wake from a dream of a (wreck in a) speeding jeep
thats me...
your dreamer (dreamchild)

- refrain -
so take me as you may
ill take this holiday
from reason
and ill be home to stay
and send you on your way
four-seasons

drowned down south where the summers hot
swimmin in the river though mean it, I DID NOT
if i felt your breath on a sharp old rock
id be...
your faithful (lover)

- refrain -

dont think blinds dont let me see
mad differences between you and me
lover and a dreamer against sanity
ill be... not me

- refain to end -

dissipation. it is... amazing to me when under certain situations. it happens. division's on the line not to be lost but to be clinched... thirteen straight. this could be big. marlins lost, fans stayed to see if estrada can pull a 3-2 score two out two on (first and second) into a division clinch. and so it builds. the anticipation, the excitement, the emotion... in the park. fouled some back, swung at some balls... but finally connects. now theres nothing special about the pop to the secondbaseman except that he called the first off at the last second - no big drama - but that the tiny potential bomb of energy that had built up in that stadium in atlanta suddenly... dissipated. there was no excitement... no good vibes or terribly bad emotion. just an anticlimax. just people breathing out and in again and in that way continuing on looking not at this one single unvictory - the not clinch, infact the tie clincher - maybe looking ahead, maybe to home, or just leaving the park itself. but not the game. the talk of a division tonight dispelled and utterly dissipated in the single instant the fans with the best vision caught sight of the ball in its arc and heard the crack of the bat and worked hard in their little minds without knowing it just to feel that the ball was going nowhere. and they knew then that when it came down it wasnt going to be tonight. and that wasnt catastrophic. nobody committed suicide over the non-division night but instead went home and watched the replays on sportscenter. all the anxiety dissipated just like that. hearts beating to the rhythm of imitated brave drums slowed and the chanting stopped. it simply wasnt tonight. maybe tomorrow night. maybe the night after that. but not here, not now. that wasnt terrible or particularly likely or unlikely but true and what happened was that the excitement had no where to go and so dissipated into the hot southern night. the red wire cut. and as the lights go off in atlanta nobody will worry because it isnt such a big deal, not such a bad thing, doesnt really matter in the long run. but for tonight, for people everywhere - dissipation.

and what really blows my mind. theres a game i play with myself every now and then. it has nothing to do with rubbing fingers together, although i enjoy that one too. music is very important to me. its always with me, will always be with me, i carry it around in the background. i cant speak for everyone but personally i always have a song in my head. this is to say, i cannot remember a time in my insignificant personal history that i havent had a song in my head. so theres a game i play with my mind. take that song and turn the volume up. really crank it up. louder and louder and louder and louder still until you cant hear anything except that song... except there is still real life happening and you are still hearing things just not comprehending anything except that one song which is so loud in your head that you can feel the distortion building because your little wired mind cant handle the power it is mimicing. so you feel the drive and build and distortion and it gives out so turn it down. down, down, lower and lower. this is much more difficult. lower and lower and lower until its a whisper but its all you can hear - all you can focus on in the entirety of the real world. this one tiny imaginary whisp of a melody in the background, in the white dark void of your head and you can see it getting smaller and smaller until :pop: theres nothing left. turn the music in your head off. the :pop: helps me because it gives something to displace the musical notion. now turn it back on and let it build more and more and grow from a whisper to a scream and a hammer and a bomb in your head and feel it again and pulse it and turn it off. and back on... control it. this isnt easy... but it blows my mind. it isnt something you can just wrap your mind around. you must stretch it and warp it and bellow inside to work this piece of music into a controllable substance. bend and sway and squint and groan and all sorts of things to build and build and crank until the sound is too much to handle. and then - so delicately - back down and :pop:. so in class... and i do this. when i writhe a bit and bop a bit and make a face to myself and no one else and you catch that little act. know what its about. its me blowing my mind.

dammit kid, you frustrate me. and trying to find decent cars online... actually i did find a drop-dead gorgeous '51 packard for sale in springfield virginia that i would sell the volvo in a second for but i doubt somehow that i could afford it. of course theres more to affording a car than the asking price and chrome parts aint cheap. there just aint many good buicks left either. whatever... i dont really have anything else to say.

theres no ceiling above my head, just insulator and frame boards sans-plaster because the roof in here was leaking a while back and its getting fixed. tonight my dad and i moved the two plants - more like mini trees - out of here and into the den next to us and as i sit and muse over what to write next it occurs to me they each elicit totally different thoughts from where im sitting. the first one is a pine of some sort... or some kind of ever greenish thing - norfolk maybe - and is sitting semi in front of the television but also between it and me so it doesnt reflect any light back at me. the only way to really distinguish it is by the indirect light that shines through off the gold wall in the background from the television dans bureau. the thing about these trees is that it basically consists of a single skinny but strong trunk covered in little green fat needles - as are the rest of the branches - and branches. the very top has little short branches that shoot upwards. then theres nothing for a couple inches... the middle has longer branches that shoot out and droop a bit. then theres nothing for a couple inches... the bottom has even bigger branches that just droop. the important thing here, however, isnt the droop of the branches but the total picture. the tree is one of those hawaiian hula dancers. grass skirt... arms out... umm head. ok so that one was a waste. trust me though, it really is a hula dancer. hula dancer.

the other tree is much more dramatic. the tree itself is more of a mini hardwood type with broader green leaves but is still pretty skinny and almost wimpy. the thing is, the tv reflects off it to me so it is lit up like on display. the white trunk pierces the drab room and gives the impression less of a tree in a room and more of some tree in the wild. yeah, i can see a storm with lightning striking in the woods that would illuminate a tree like this. or a forest fire with flickering flames singing its bark. this tree is drama itself. its life and death and such power and awe that you could not possibly understand unless you were here. i sit here amazed.

i didnt even hardly try to write music tonight. it just wasnt worth it. the effort... creativity... patience... yeah none of it was there tonight. and - arg - still no one really captivating to talk to. but that makes it like most nights. i mean im not really disappointed by it all. by this point, my expectations are lower. lowered the bar... and by that i do not reference limbo because typically that is the polar opposite of what i mean. for the past two years ive hurt to much and though ive hated it, truth is ive learned to live with it. so though i may get a bit emotional for short bursts of time when you leave as i sit down - and this happens all too often kid - i get over it just as quick. though id like to be a less emotional person in the future... well maybe not less emotional but more in control of how and when i express it. throughout it all ive developed a particularly bad habit of getting really bent out of shape about stuff i can attribute to teenage life by now. maybe it doesnt bother me as much that you get drunk but that it wasnt with me. who the hell knows. i can apologize for making it hell on a couple people who have been particularly kind enough to always listen to me whine and they probably deserve it but i dont think i have any regrets. which is to say that i dont think any of my developement up to now has been terrible in any way. its just whats brought me to here, now, writing. now if ive really been a pain in the arse im sorry for not being better about it but im not sorry for feeling the way i did. what im trying to say is that even though i still get bent out of shape, im trying to stop. and maybe someday i can be that best friend you wanted all along and be happy with that. i dont know when that will be but i do look forward to it. and through my pain in the ass regression - or progression - back into terminal relaxation... i hope i can regain some of that lost spark that pushed other people away. so heres to my future. i just hope i dont run out of people to share it with.

this is the third night in a row i have posted. this is called a spree. famous sprees include shopping sprees, shooting sprees, the polyphonic spree, and chewy sprees. spree is a very strange word. but i didnt post tonight to write about spree. im not sure why i did at all. maybe its because i have no one good to talk to and nothing else to do. ive given up on guitar for the night. it got too damn difficult. trying to write a song... what a waste. even if i manage to paste together a decent enough chord progression i cant write the lyrics. i suppose i could write the lyrics - as i did on the lawnmower today - without the music or the music without the lyrics but never both. and usually songs have both. because my lyrics arent good enough to stand alone as - say - poetry and my music is definitely not quite instrumentalist quality so ive basically got nothing.

out in dirty durham last wednesday before the concert and my short break i played in a terrible soccer game. so we lost and i didnt do anything very good... but there was a bright spot. that one pointin time every single year when i recognize the autumn. i appreciated it as a kid... i remember once i sat outside the first day i felt the crisp breeze that pretty much signifies the end of summer to me and swung on my swingset and sang a song i made up on the spot. i dont know how long i stayed out there but it feels like forever. so ive always made a point of appreciating the first instance of that cool crisp air every year. and out on that soccer field in the middle of crime-ridden dirty durham i stood in the backfield during a broken play and looked at the sky. it was so blue... the sky is so much richer and filled with some intangible and hardly explanable quality that is so much more evident when the air is cooler and theres a breeze at your face. it was one of those moments i could look up and take a breather and really thank god for whatever this was that i was getting notions of. because its really amazing when you are overwhelmed by a sky. it had to be something there for me to remember now - nights later - and that i can still feel. something to thank god about.

i mentioned last night how the only times i ever really know whats good for me is when im writing and praying. its also occured to me that when i pray i end up thanking god a lot more than i do complaining. for some reason its tough to post formal complaints with the big guy. whenever i feel really shitty i might pray in some terse quiet manner that is somehow supposed to let god know that im angry with him but otherwise whenever im figuring myself out in this oratory to heaven i end up saying thanks a lot more than not. thanks for all the blessings. thanks for the people. yeah help my relationships to mature and somehow help me find that soulmate someday that i feel like i deserve but really god, just thanks. help me to utilize these opportunities and somehow make the most out of what youve given me. and thanks... cause its a lot and i realize that. ive got nothing to complain about in the grand scale of things. growing up male middleclass and white could be worse. so thanks. i just wish i felt like that more often. more often i could feel like the blessings are infecting me and infectious laughter bubbles up and the sky spins around me and its blue and cool and everything is wonderful and blessed all at once. but thanks.

once bob vernon - yes the television personality - {you are my sunshine} - no not bob - came to our church to preach a sermon. truthfully i didnt like it that much. it was corny. at the end he told us to close our eyes and visualize a field and jesus is there and look into his eyes and hes holding his arms out for you and run out and hug jesus... or something like that. now for some reason i had a different vision. my field was on the side of a mountain - gently sloped but still sloped - i am standing looking down the slope and there is short grass and tufts of longer grass and big rocks strewn randomly around like something you can imagine in scotland or ireland with goats {but there are no goats in the vision}. when i see jesus he is a large robot floating in the sky. jesus is metal and has square feet and a square head and closely resembles ironman. his features appear painted on more than anything and his arms arent out to greet me but out to the side like he is hanging on a cross. his eyes arent looking at me but are just robot eyes and he just floats there in the sky like some prodigy - some frightening robot - robots dont care they just float there. so jesus is just floating there and i can see him and almost touch him. this is disturbing to dream me but i still believe it is jesus. bob tells us to run and give jesus a hug so i run towards him but it is down the mountain to jesus and by the time i reach him he is too far off the ground. so i jump and jump and call for jesus but i cant get to him. jesus is just out of my reach.

i am fucking sick of writing sad serious things. but the only way i can really write is to be serious. i find it difficult to be pleased with myself going on about stupid things. i cant really write in the way i want to when i dont have anything substantial to write about. it feels like the old me, the one i grew out of last year. i dont know though, maybe its better to write about stupid things every once in a while. i just dont feel like that kid anymore. i havent in a long time.

so i need to write about something happy... or at least not sad... that is happening. and all thats turning into is 'you are my joy' over and over again. which leads me back to relationships which is nowhere i want to be right now. rather i should say, its always where i want to be when things are good. or when i can talk about it freely. such a drama queen {king... whatever}. and i suck at drama. maybe i want to be a performing artist someday. but i would have to write my own music. thats going nowhere at the moment. only that four chord thing i mentioned last night. i dont really count that as a song, just a cool progression. but progressions are like baby songs. and i would need to write words which in music are called lyrics. this is based off poetry. i guess they used to sing poetry back in the day. on to song three-ninety-two. its a good one. a cover. covers are all i know at the moment. i fantasize when i mow the grass of recording an album in my basement of me doing covers. i know enough of them... i even have a title in mind. something to muse about anyway. oh and dammit son all the songs i would write anyway would probably be about relationships... its the easiest thing. most poetic to me and every other wannabe songwriter out there. its the easy way out. dont need to go there.

is this better? i hope i am not being too manic depressed tonight. although, truth be told, i am wondering why certain people arent speaking to me. its ironic though, i am using their togetherness as an excuse not to talk to them... but it would still be nice for them to put forth the first hello.

oh god oh god oh god... beautiful music. i need to know this song. ruin it for myself. its so perfect... a cover. covers are things you can either fuck up or make wonderful. this is definitely wonderful. no i wont tell you what it is. ah - nothing is real. makes me smile every time... this cover. such contradictions... ah lovely. i think its not too bad.

i just found one of those snap-wrist bands on the desk next to me. im not sure where its been or where it came from {or are those the same thing?}... its so much fun, so retro. you know those things you could straighten out and then snap them and they would close around your wrist? reminds me of middle school. i think i had a pink one back then covered in some kind of fabric... some tight woven synthetic stuff that wasnt really real. and it got dirty and turned tinted brown and got slick and shiny with people oils that come out of your hands and etc. you know the stuff. this one is red and plastic and apparently made by adidas. ok. good to know. and the edges are that pressed and cut plastic. where the plastic is sealed and then the excess is cut off but it leaves this little jagged plastic edge behind. that has always pissed me off. its never worth thinking about much. except when it hurts your fingers or drags on your shirt. one of the things that discolors my life because i get this hot angry helpless sad feeling when i think about it. theres still nothing i can do about all my history with plastic edges and all the pain thats caused. damn those fake plastic armbands.

i should not be worrying about this. now wait, when i say that i know what i should or should not be doing. the only times i figure out for myself whats the best for me are when im writing here or praying to god. either way i know what i need and want and am able to articulate it in such a way that suits me. my nightly monologues to god are some of the best moments in my life. still its just something i make myself do before i go to sleep. simply because ive always done it and dont want to break the streak. should i really be treating god that way? maybe not. i just dont care enough to really consider it. religion is such a natural part of my life that im really used to it by now. its always been there in the background but not ever really present. i cant feel religion right now. or god. seems like ive never felt any concrete proof of the existance of any omnipotent god or christ or whatever. but i believe it... i think. at least ive never thought about it enough to disprove myself. maybe i consider that dangerous. if i somehow convince myself not to believe and there really is a jesus christ he might get pissed off. i dont want to risk that so i might as well believe that hes real. i mean if i really didnt believe in the reality of a savior and god {although i like saying saviour more} i wouldnt be scared of not believing right? i hear commercials on the radio saying that god wont prove his existance to me and i am just supposed to believe. the whole principle of faith. and that i should be wholly consumed and made content with jesus. obsessed with jesus. why is that? so i am put on this earth to find all my joy in inarticulate, invisible, immaculate jesus? now how is that possible... stands to reason that since i am a sinner {thanks for that label god} i should be consumed with earth things. maybe i should covet and love other people and enjoy toys and even blaspheme {another fun word} sometimes and it will all be ok. the only radio commercial thats ever made me feel good at all - most are depressing or forboding - is the one that is curious why people wont accept pardons from the presidents for their sins. like they stay in jail. well of course that means that no matter what jesus or god or whichever will forgive me someday for all this shit i am writing now... but how can i ever really be sure of anything? plenty of thanks to the wake forest isp radio network for picking a baptist station to broadcast off of. thanks guys... thanks a lot.

ah late night ambient mix. its wonderful. still nobody talking to me. but thats ok. ive grown into writing tonight. as long as i can keep spilling words out to the screen everything will be alright. no woman no cry right? someone speak to me. leeeegaliiiize itttt... more marley there. for you. just so you know. its all for you. bah fuck ive been writing for half an hour. isnt there something else to do? i am just rambling now. and i noticed a long time ago that most nights all i want to do is write in the socriatic method. i ask a lot of questions, i know. dont answer many either. doesnt seem to bother all you though, you are still reading. dorks. every single one of you. snl is a rerun tonight but i would rather be watching that than reading this. i am insulting you. jesus, you all suck. ah fuckit.

the ambient mix is only half done. sigh... what to do with the night. i wont back down from my self-proclaimed maverickness and resort to contacting other people for conversation. ive set a standard in my head and for some reason think that i have to follow it. stupid isnt it? i might just be prideful though except its all in my head. definitely a possibility. always striving for that extra little self-esteem lurking in the background. for stupid reasons. a lot of things in my life are done for stupid reasons. desperation for drama. yeah you know what i mean. she does. the banner on my cell phone reads 'stupidreason'. thats how serious i am. i mean i wasnt supposed to be serious tonight. ah well... fuckit. i think i heard that in a song once... stupid reasons. yes, i did. ok, glad i cleared that up with me. it was so worth it.

i wish there were stars out tonight. i cant even see them. the glow of this stupid monitor is just enough light pollution to drown out most everything i can peripherally see except the television in the next room and the two little green led lights on the fronts of the fucking fucked speakers to my left and right. its gotten so bad i have to jiggle around a headphone jack in the... jack of one of them to get them to work. beat on it. terrible. and its odd too that the one little soundboard touch of this song, behind the singing and a bit over the looped bassline, really sounds like gorillaz to me. i miss them. maybe i should bring them back to me.

ah a light just came on outside... what would that mean? it means something moved in its little radaric path. my dog barked. so this means theres something in the woods, my dog is paranoid, or theres someone on my deck about to shoot me. i like the third guess. ive always been a little paranoid at night. someones always out to get me. im not sure why... i never hurt anyone. i mean i killed that snake a while back but i wasnt aware he had any family. family set on revenge... like in the old days. ah the old days. so much is referenced to the old days. cause so much is going on these days. people miss the old days. i know i do. my old days. cause my old days were your old days. hopefully. do you miss the old days too? were they my old days... or just old days. meh, i can only hope.

i cant seem to find a good enough place to drop off tonight. maybe with a quote... but theres none to be found. just this. wow, this is terrible. i apologize.

nite

When I see a leaf fall, I always say goodbye

there isnt a way to say what im thinking the way i want it to come out. this is very difficult. the words that flow need to be in the mood, elicit the sort of feelings and edge or softness from yall that i need them to but it just isnt working. a long time ago i realized that important moments happen all the time and that i should remember them. so ive gotten in the habit of making little mental notes of things at important times in my life. all to often though, these are goodbyes. i wish it werent like that but i can still feel and see and smell... everything. i can still feel you that night on a little side street in raleigh years ago... or out behind lillys... or walking out of that restaurant downtown. all these goodbyes i took in all too much because i can still feel the pain now. i am so damn used to it though that it doesnt bother me. but its strange to reflect. i can close my eyes and still have you here in front of me again. i dont even know why i do...

i ruined a beautiful song tonight. its something i do - oh - all the time. i even thought about it this time. if i learn to play this song it will kill it for me. it hasnt even been with me but a couple nights. why do that? because it haunts me thats why. but now i know what everytime i hear it i will be visualizing the chords in my head and perfecting it when it really isnt supposed to be that way at all. the artist does it though. any maybe now i can haunt my friends with it. but is it really worth it? i dont know. what i liked better was stealing a couple chords from a different artist and stringing three of them together in a little pattern and playing that. it felt like a warmup but it could have been a song, i suppose. just needs some lyrics. its so simple though, like a small child that needs to grow but cant because i wont let it. oh well, i can appreciate it for what it is anyway. maybe later it will be something more but for now ill shove it in a closet and wait for it to present itself.

its starting to bother me that i only write about serious things these days. whatever happened to finding the beauty in life? yeah im not sure either. nothing seems beautiful these days. ive always appreciated storms but not so much when all there is to say about it is that i managed to make it to the jeep today before anyone else and missed getting wet. sometimes things just arent as beautiful as they used to be. maybe its just the place im at. if i were happier and - essentially - go luckier... maybe things would be different.

I'm just a happy kid
Stuck with the heart of a sad punk
Drowning in my id
Always searching like it's on junk
No matter who I hang out with
I can hear the clack-clunk
Of the chains that pull the cars up
The roller coaster mountaintop so high
When it comes down it shoots back up
Straight back to the sky

so fucking hell, that about sums it up. i didn’t write that but it came to mind. if you remember a while back i wrote about a song u was listening to that i hadnt heard in forever and how it was so strange to hear it again. well… im listening to it again. and its still good. yay. other than that i guess nothing

ok pause here... blogger is being a real bitch and fucking up my night. i dont care for your fucking formatting or words auto formatting shit and i just want my post to continue tying and fit on the fucking page and not have to worry about writing lines that are six fucking feet long because it always will reset to a new line when i reach the end of the box. jesus fucking christ.

i dont even feel like writing anymore. this night is a failure.


{new template... im happy again :) }

blood on my hands. not metaphorically this time but beautifully true. my purple fingerpolish blood. it is amazing if you really see it. blood is such an opaque color... so deep. you can see into it for miles. i will have a car someday... that color... a true blood red and it would be so beautiful. just beyond comprehension. i can see three or four coats of varying color for depth and tone wet sanded in between with three or four coats of clear on top. wet and dry sanded of course. so deep and i can almost believe that people will recognize it. they wont know what to believe to see it, what to feel other than be repulsed for some unknown reason, magically, by this beautiful deep frightening ghastly evil color. and so organic. so it grows in you and finds a way out. i can rip a small piece of skin off my finger... pick it and pick it until it goes and see a small, tiny, red dot appear but if you squeeze it that red dot will burst forth tearing a new hole for itself and filling up the fingernail. doesnt even hurt... just bloody wetness. and you can see the light glisten off of it - in a church of all places - and it dries to a matt black... or purple. and now after hours it is a mosaic. a relic of time, something unearthed. partly flaked off but still angularly caked on. darker around the edges of the nail. in the dark like a single gothic painted finger.

but forgive my apparent morbidity. dont mistake me for anything im not. i dont have a perversion to the sight of blood or some masochistic need to try and feel death. but i can see the beauty in things people might find revolting. i know plenty of people who cant take the sight of blood. much less see how the light glistens off it (like a rose colored onyx... maybe that is beautiful to you like it is to me...) or wonder why it is watery on your finger or smells so sickeningly of iron when you rub it into stickiness. why be turned off by all this? it is life. it is the essence of all that we are and will ever be. sacks of blood. maybe not a pretty picture but certainly more accurate than how we prefer ourselves (dry... well most people anyway). try and be on track with me here, appreciate the things other people wont. you will see more of life that way. dont tell me youve never seen death before or life leaving... but what did you feel and why? and above all try and see it and feel it and find the answers for yourself and dont automatically be a social stoic in the face of the unusual.

in that little black space there between the last line and this one i played guitar. i love what a calming effect this all has on me. how beautiful the music is some nights and how i dont even have to try at all. how it wont even rub the crusted blood off my left finger or even hurt

i didnt like that paragraph so i erased the rest of it. it never happened.

im coming to a conclusion tonight. not a concrete one, just an idea for the night. i dont know whether i want or even need a relationship right now. seems like there is a void in my life but im pretty sure that is imaginary. a real relationship is all ive ever wanted but never had. it would be good for me, give me a chance to grow and mature and learn what love is about and how to deal with it and all that shit that comes along. i can look forward to that but the most likely thing to happen now would be a shitful high school relationship with no real meaning. maybe it would fill an imaginary void but not a real one. either way i would have to say goodbye to go to school in the fall. that would suck. cant say ive ever been the one to accept something so flawed from conception to take the place of something so perfect. so would it be better for me to hold off and just try and keep to myself until college? that seems almost odd because i keep getting these notions of attention from other people and i dont know how to deal with that. never have... maybe never will. i cant imagine the damage im doing to myself by writing all this down but hey, fuckit. scares me a little bit and makes me want more than anything to be able to say, ah, its fine i dont have to deal with it i am in a relationship... even if its so estranged and crazily odd as it can be at least i have an excuse. some escape. hell, thats not the case though. so what, see what developes. god it would be a fucking nightmare to deal with me. just be kind please.

blood on your hands. i killed a snake the other day, that much is true. it freaked me out. still freaks me out. because i can still see it hanging by its almost severed neck around a treelimb. like some black and white shot from a low budget horror flick. and swinging that blade. this is not the point. i could write a dissertation on how much it hurts to kill incessantly. how it wouldnt die even after i chopped it in three pieces. hurts to watch. hurts to do.

and now i know how it feels. nothing serious but fucking pissed. this is what it felt like for northwood hmm... thats interesting at least. man has a strong desire for revenge. much too strong. a killer instinct that we have somehow managed to wrangle into refereed outburts of aggression... and its all bullshit.

i feel so much
it is almost of my lifes philosophy to feel all you can
because if we all die eventually and never know when it would suit you better to feel all you can while you can
such a philosophy
the anti-numbness routine
but doesnt it get old
when all i can do is feel and think and explain it all to a page
for myself and for you
and its all the same all the time for all time
it sucked but i felt my priorities change
thought in terms of materialness i didnt appreciate
i want to stop
need to stop
none of that matters
i dupe myself into believing what matters
and nights like this come with nothing important and nobody important
sweep it all back to me
all i had forgotten
all that bloody backwash

i can sit here again like every single night before with nothing to say and just spew shit on the page. have i written anything? fucking hell no. its more of the same old jazz rehashed cudd. what if i said i figured that i just might make it? would that make more sense? it would be new for sure.

well maybe thats the case then. maybe i can fucking walk away from all this terrible past oriented thicket that ive wandered into. nobody has dared show me the light. jesus hasnt thought to interfere. but maybe i should just walk away. so what if i leave two of the most important people in my life? is that really what it would be... because maybe things have changed. i am still stuck on the past. i havent taken stock of my new surroundings and displaced the old notions of kindess and caring and whatever else i thought of you. whatever old opinions i had arent helping me now. not when it makes it hurt. ahh all this is the same as what ive already said...

so where do i stand right now? right now i am frustrated because i am writing nothing of any true consequence and havent for a long time and it is killing me. i am frustrated because i lost someone i care about and left another. i never expected to be left with nobody. and this terribly beautiful music is playing. it is too much to deal with because i cant match up... i cant put down words beautiful enough or sweetly enough to possibly grasp the meaning of what i am hearing. if only someday i could be like that. make people hurt like this does. starve someone for inspiration. it would all be worth it. and i never write music and that makes me feel like such a waste. writing worthwhile music would mean so much more to me than writing worthwhile prose. music can be so damn painful. prose can only hurt you as much as you will let it. a song can be recharged reused and recycled and played for audiences as long as you remember it. it can make people cry around the globe in so much more personal ways than some random prose posted on the web. it isnt as serious. but writing music takes talent and writing this shit takes none. at least i dont think so. maybe ive given up on what really matters to me. if i end up in sone university studying pre-med instead of music will it be a waste? i cant worry about that now. i must worry about love and life and digging everything i possibly can because if i dont now i might just lose it all tomorrow and will die having not dug and not loved everything and everyone i possibly could have. that would be a waste of me.

but what do i do about it? i wait. i let it be. it was a philosophy i let go a long time ago. last year. ap time. that was the plan. just let it be. what i did cannot be undone. it would be an utter fucking copout to try and pull that. cant crawl back now. i can just wait for an excuse... like if you were to commit. that would make more sense to me. it sucks to wait for it. i could just walk away. i should just walk away. you are a fucking cancer, kid, all that is bad for me. i am blind because of you and you know it. so why the apathetic eyes hun? use those lips and give me some word. and what about this other frustratinger situation eh? walk away seems the most logical option but it hurts anyway. jesus, why do i worry about my own pain... i should be so used to it by now.

christ folks, its september 11th and im worrying about my pain. fucking hell.

lets all jam in another language. because that is digging life. maybe i am just stuck in beat. its probably true. maybe im not such a great romantic. hah, love life and life for love. isnt that what ive always meant? even if ive never found the words to say it. why spend time being sad when you could be staring at your hands and wondering where all those little lines come from. i twiddle fingers to pass the time when walking and love it. try rubbing your fingers together... just the knuckles. murphy will tell you it rocks. why not lie out on the grass and stare at the sky some more? more nights on music on life on anything you can get your hands on. each trip around the sun brings us closer to death and farther from our purpose. find yourself an ideal and work for it people, dont just sit idely by. jesus, get up. and dont ever sell yourself short. its not worth it. be disappointed every now and then but dont let it sit you back down. its all bullshit and you know it. take all those mini ads for the truth and nothing else for granted. its all gifts from god or all just random circumstance. either way see it for what it is to you and take that thought and exploit it, rape it, probe it, and pillage it until it is something completely new, some new truth of yours. dig it please. dont waste it. life is only as much of a bitch as you make it. nobody should be so important that you are blind to everyone else that cares about you. its no fun, trust me. dont read whatever i say as advice or a way out unless you want it to be that way. i wouldnt reccomend it hun.

whatever ive just said doesnt even mean anything... but its beautiful isnt it? if you can dig that maybe you can appreciate it like i can. try and see and feel and know as much as you can. i live inside my eyes, my entire consciousness resides there. a little creature stuck inside a body like a robot. just mobile extensions of my inner flexible being. much like men in black. but i live in my eyes so it would be good to be blind for a day. or longer. to just live outside my natural means and see how other people cope. it would be healthy. but its not like im going to do anything about it. slacker. yeah its a bummer yeah.

hah fuckit goodnight

how strange... how very strange. its been over a week. and it is september (much better than august, i know) and things are happening and only a limited amount of it is good. writing about meaningless things (like how my hair is in my eyes or that our game today was canceled or just why september is better than august...) just isnt the right thing to do. i wouldnt be doing the right thing.

i was in a bad mood just about all of today... why? jesus, its hard to explain. lonliness maybe. yall should be used to all this by now. umm lonliness because of loss? no... i never lost anything. nothing physical anyway. maybe something emotional, some piece of the puzzle i always thought i could paint the picture around. i knew this was coming i just didnt do anything to stop it. figure there isnt any way... why worry? no because i knew whats happening would happen and i knew it would hurt but i always counted on precisely that as my way out anyway. why do i do this? whenever i got really pissed off because of something you did i would tell you to just stop loving me and... date somebody else. so i thought, hell, if she is dating someone else i would have to hate her and it would hurt like fucking mother of god but i would eventually get over it. well now the prospect is a little too much to handle. see because now that i am out of it... i dont know whether being out of it is what i ever wanted anyway. but to be in it would require us both to be in it which is difficult when you are in it yourself. maybe i dont want to be over you anymore. so why take away my options like that? regardless, more than anything else ive always wanted to be yours more than for you to be mine. you know that. its tough. its tough when theres a third party. jesus, why do i do this to myself?

and aside from alllll that theres you. no, i am not confused. different you. i dont even think this one reads whatever im saying. you were always the kid i thought i could fall back on. you were my best friend for a little while. there was a time when you enjoyed being with me as much as i did with you. can you imagine that? really try. it hasnt been like that in a long time. i love you. i hope you know that. well... or loved. i dont really know. your emotical value tends to waver much like the kid in the paragraph above. you possess such power over me. when you act like you care its like i am special all of a sudden. but then most of the time you dont and it hurts. i hope you know that. you hurt me all the time. if you remember correctly it was a year ago this month when this all started. i think before that you were my best friend. but then things got interesting. and i always thought that would be a good thing, that somehow things would be of my own benefit? what? how could that be? at the same time you were involved. involved? how could i do that while you were involved? eh, so was i. no worries.

but now... you are still involved and i am... not. here lies the truely meaningful part. i wanted you. when i somehow left her... i wanted you. now this is complicated because i was - am - not over her. but still theres you. hah and i even see you every day. but you have him. and - ah - dont have time for me. i dont think we have spent time together since... a month. at least a month and that doesnt even count because of her! so dont you see that im frustrated? i am so down because of you. now when i have nobody i need you to be my somebody... at least help me through. at least spend a little time with me. you just dont care. i want you to care but you dont. fucking hell, why cant you anymore? are you that far gone? ive always loved you for who i imagined you to be or who i wanted you to be... i hate that. maybe its supposed to be that way. you keep disappointing me, kid. why all this? why do i get the feeling that what you have is not close to being over? that you are still so much closer to him than you will ever be with me? and is this not further proof? im sorry for being mean. i didnt mean to come off that way. its not like i have a personal vendetta against it. its just not you to me. i want you to be that girl i thought i knew a year ago and i want you to care about me and i want to be happy that way. not with this. not with who you are being. the worst of it is that i cant see you snapping out of it. you arent one to realize you are mistreating me and just go do something about that. why have you always floated above that... and why is it me always doing the talking?